How many mysqld processes should be running?

[webchalkboard]

Hi,

We have a server and i've just noticed it's got about 40 mysqld processes running. Is this normal? Our load average is about 28! I know that's not normal :'(

Tom

[Tangerine_Dream]

Hi, so what's wrong with it?

[newspire]

40 mysqld process or threads running at the same time is normal if you have 38 clients connected to your database. 40 processes would be very abnormal for me. I usually have between 100-250 mysql processes running. It just depends on how many clients are using the db.

Run the query:
show process list;
This will tell you who's connected and what they are doing.

A load average of 28 is high unless you have 14 processors which you probably don't. ;-)